The sergeant looked from me to Brond. Clearly this was not his idea of a conversation in front of a suspect . . . from the way his eyes flickered down to avoid his superior officer, I guessed he did not feel hearing this would do him much good. Muddled and frightened, I had the wild idea Brond was trying to give me some clue as to what was going on, but all I could think of was Kilpatrick: that he had been a policeman and that he was dead.
Not long afterwards they took me out of the room where I had been questioned. Brond went away somewhere and left me. While the men spoke around me, I could only see that there was a wash of grey light across each pebble of frosted glass in a window. The night was over.
They charged me with the murder of Peter Kilpatrick, and then they put me in a cell where there was a bed and allowed me at last to sleep.
THIRTEEN
I had only been a prisoner for a day and some part of this day, and yet as they hustled me out to the car my heart hurt me with the relief of being under the sky again; and as we were driven through the streets I could not have enough of looking at the women on the pavements. How could I come to harm when the city was full of mothers buying food and bargaining?
We were held up at the lights outside a jeweller’s. Above the door I saw the words Mappin and Webb and we edged forward and there were three clocks arranged in a window. As I watched, their hands shaped eleven o’clock in unison and in my silence I imagined their chimes.
I was wide awake; everything was sharp-edged and clear; I was beyond exhaustion. They had shaken and lifted me out of sleep. It was like the times after parties this winter when I had wakened in the morning still drunk. I thought my mind was clear. At intervals I considered that I had been charged with murder. It was a true event which referred to someone else. Under all that pretence, a silent mouth inside me screamed.
The dark man’s stomach rumbled.
‘So much for sandwiches on the plane,’ he said pleasantly, as much it seemed to me as anyone.
The fair-headed one on my other side grunted agreement. On the next corner, he eased himself up and farted.
‘Sandwiches,’ the dark one said and they laughed.
They were both Cockneys. The Noel Coward song kept jingling in my head, ‘Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner . . . Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner . . .’
‘What a bloody dump!’ the dark one said.
‘The arsehole of Europe,’ the fair one said.
They both laughed again. They were like a cross-talk act.
The dark one nudged me.
‘That bother you, Jock?’
‘I don’t come from Glasgow,’ I said. He seemed to think I was a member of the Tourist Board.
‘Funny that,’ the fair one took it up. ‘You not getting angry. I’d have thought that would have made you angry. Believing what you believe.’
‘Eh?’
‘Easier to shoot your mouth off in a pub?’ the dark one said. ‘With your mates. In pubs like. Not so easy here. Tell me! I’m listening.’
I kept my mouth shut.
‘Fucking berk!’ the fair one said.
I wondered what the driver thought of the conversation. Yes, sir, I’d heard him say when we came out. He had a Glasgow voice.
Fortunately the journey ended quickly. We got out and I felt sick at the sight of the hotel I had been questioned about the previous night. They put a hand each on my arms, just above the elbow. They didn’t grip hard but it was extraordinarily unpleasant.
Inside, I saw the manager who had spared a quick word to me and the other temporaries at Christmas. The doorman too I recognised, and one of the porters. It felt as if everyone was staring at me, but I doubt if any of the guests realised what was going on.
One of the hotel staff led us along a corridor.
‘We’ll manage from here,’ the dark one said to him.
‘Do you know how to find your way upstairs? There’s a back way.’
‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll come back to the desk. You can take us.’
‘I could wait. The hotel would prefer as much discretion as possible.’
They looked at him silently.
‘Well,’ he said uncomfortably, ‘I’ll be at the desk.’
When he’d gone, one said, ‘Discretion – make you bloody sick,’ and the other agreed, ‘Much they care.’
‘Show us the door.’
‘What door?’
‘Games. They said you were a comedian.’
The hand on each bicep urged me forward. Before the end of the corridor, we stopped beside a door. It had the look of painted metal like a fire door.
‘Push it.’
‘Give it a push,’ the other one repeated.
I shoved and it swung open. There was a narrow area ten feet or so square. The windows facing us had ventilators set in at the top. You could not see through them but one had been pulled down and there was a clatter of kitchen noises and a man’s voice mauling a pop song. I had washed dishes somewhere behind those windows.
‘Lock’s been broken.’
The dark one was doing all the talking now. He pulled me round by the arm.
‘Take a look.’
There was a metal bar that must have been intended to slot into the wall.
‘It’s been forced,’ I said.
‘That’s right.’ He sounded like a master whose dimmest pupil had just managed an answer. ‘You know anybody who could do that?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘People come along here all the time,’ he said. ‘Somebody would notice if you messed up the wall. Whoever did this did it so there was no mess. And he must have done it fast. Fast as a bleeding gorilla. You know anybody like that?’
‘Jock here could do it,’ the fair one said, finding his voice again. ‘Feel your muscle?’
And he put his hand back on my arm and rubbed the bicep.
‘Ooh, ooh,’ he did a parody of camp appreciation.
‘Cut it out!’ I said pulling away.
‘Watch it! We’ll turn you over for attempted escape.’
‘Might hit us with his stick.’
‘What’s he bleeding got it for anyway? Ridiculous. Desperate character and they leave him with a weapon.’
He took the stick out of my hand and weighed it reflectively.
‘It ain’t heavy, but it don’t mean you couldn’t manage a bit of GBH. He could poke you in the balls with it, Wally.’
‘I need it to walk. That’s why they left it. I’ve hurt my foot.’
‘No!’ he said in sympathetic disbelief.
He moved too quickly and anyway his grinning face gave me no warning. Before I could react, he stepped on the injured foot. The pain was so bad and unexpected that I blacked out.
It could only have been for a second. I was leaning against the wall – the fair one had stopped grinning. He held out the stick. I took it.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t looking where I was going.’
And he grinned.
‘Outside,’ the dark one said and moved me out into the area. When I looked up, the sky was blue and far away at the top of the funnel.
‘We’re interested in the window four floors up. Don’t need to tell you, though, do we?’
‘Why not? I don’t—’
I broke off. What was the use?
‘You don’t . . .? Nobody ever teach you it’s manners to finish a sentence?’
‘I think I should have a lawyer.’
The laugh they gave sounded genuinely amused.
‘Bit late for that, my old son,’ one said. And the other, ‘You’ve been watching those late-night movies. But this isn’t fucking America, it’s England.’